…so…funny story…the case brought to the courts in an effort to bar the publication of the upcoming book by the for-real niece of the alleged president was brought by his brother…but guess who else the lawyer he used has brought a bunch of nuisance cases for against the publication of things that aren’t favourable to a certain orange-hued sack of crap (often found making expensive suits look bad & seemingly under the impression neckties should extend to the knees)?
…yup, you guessed it…Donald “I do too have friends” Trump
…in fact…Charles B Harder does a pretty brisk trade in that sort of thing
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=charles+harder
…but if you think back to that innocent time before anyone knew the world could get nuts enough to put a 70-some-year-old screaming baby in the Oval Office you might remember that name for a different reason
Harder LLP — the Trump campaign’s highest-paid law firm in recent months, according to campaign finance data — is a boutique Beverly Hills firm led by Charles Harder that is best-known for sending letters to newsrooms alleging defamation and for a lawsuit that gutted the website Gawker.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/28/politics/charles-harder-trump-lawsuits/index.html
…& while it might be tempting to think that what’s got his diaper all wadded up is that we might learn that where the family Trump is concerned Larkin might have been on the money
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.Man hands on misery to man.
‘This be the verse’ – Philip Larkin
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
…it seems altogether more likely that it’s the fact that she supplied the NYT with those tax returns back in ’18 that’s got him to fire up the lawsuits-by-proxy
…they say you have to speculate to accumulate but we’ve been speculating about those for long enough for some serious questions to accumulate
…now…I don’t know that I’m ready to go all in on the idea that it’s done
…but there’s certainly some stuff floating about that doesn’t suck to hear
…& speaking of alarm bells that are maybe better late than never
…& even some of the stuff that still sucks
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/01/federal-reserve-recession-june-minutes/
…is starting to come with a side order these days
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/01/president-trump-take-lesson-mississippi/
…so…maybe tomorrow I’ll have time to get into the mountains of other stuff that’s going on but for today…let’s have a quick look at “russia-hoax” 2.0 (aka “the excuses get shittier”)
Death Cult Party Surprised That Inviting Death Results In Death Arriving. Film at 8.
I’m trying to hold back the temptation to get a gun because having a firearm in the house puts my household in a deadly statistical group, but these motherfuckers are testing my resolve.
This is an excellent DOT. That is all.
From the Times article above, in reference to Trump’s plummeting polls, quoted for the lyrical beauty of the passage:
Trump’s response? To set himself on fire.
His gratuitously touted instincts are nowhere to be found, supplanted by self-defeating provocations, kamikaze tantrums and an itchy Twitter finger. There’s a culture war for him to exploit, but instead of simply pillorying monument destroyers, he created his own living monuments: a white supremacist astride a golf cart in a Florida retirement community and a pistol-toting Karen shouting at peaceful Black protesters from the stoop of her St. Louis manse. As a statement of values, it’s grotesque. As a re-election strategy, it’s deranged.
Me again: Trump’s biggest enemy, now and forever, is Trump.
from july 1:
I think we all know who came up with this brilliant idea: lysol donnie…
Harder won the Gawker case because he somehow magically got the case before a judge who put her thumb on the scale for Hogan, plus both middle fingers.
And then somehow he finds a judge in NY to block Simon and Schuster, one of the biggest publishers in the world, with an order that all kinds of experts found extremely irregular.
The NY Times, of course, ran an article saying the Gawker verdict would have little impact on other outlets. The genius reporter somehow failed to see how easily it could be repeated in other ways. Now, Florida and NY have a lot of bad judges. Maybe Harder was doing nothing more than rolling the dice when he was hoping for help from a judge. But the Times really should have seen what the odds were that the legal system would be abused to stick it to the 1st Amendment with idiotic lawsuits.
I have not bought a memoir about the Trump White House yet, and I’m sure everyone will post the juicy bits online, but I’m really rooting for Mary Trump if, for nothing else, because this book is especially going to piss him off. I don’t know if Trump is trying to avoid his own legal jeopardy but he hasn’t yet called her “Crazy” Mary or something like that.
I feel as though China and Russia would be doing whatever totalitarian business they wanted to, even if Trump wasn’t president, but it feels as though they accelerated their timeline of getting that done while America was asleep at the wheel. Hong Kong is no longer autonomous and Putin is president for life. Hurrah!
Ghislaine Maxwell has been apprehended and I cheered at the news but now I feel rather grim. Some are peculating Barr put the order out now that Berman is no longer heading the SDNY but the alternative theory is that the powers that be moved now before Barr could interfere. Not sure what side I’m on but I know that Maxwell knows a lot of information that could ruin people of both parties and seriously doubt justice will be realized.
Mary Trump is said to be the source who tipped off the NY Times to the location of all of the old Trump financial records that they hoovered up and used to show how he had committed tens of millions in tax fraud. She may be a more valuable source of information than a stooge like Mattis.
It’s pretty criminal how the House has slow walked investigations into his finances. They have been really slow about even starting in areas where there are legal challenges, and have failed to dig into areas where he has no way of stopping them.
Could you explain where the House can go to start digging in his records? I’m aware that there’s a parliamentary process being reviewed by SCOTUS that boils down as to whether them looking into his finances serves a legislative purpose. Trump’s team is arguing he’s got an immunity and that the House is being vindictive.
The hold up, of course, is likely a calculation. It’s an election year, we can beat him at the polls, it’s not gentlemanly to look into a man’s finances, etc. Just like with the Taliban bounties, I feel like the House is going to set that aside for now because the election is so close and they don’t want to give Trump ammo to hypocritically accuse them of not caring about COVID.
…I don’t know that I can really explain it…not least because much of it makes too little sense for it to seem credible it’s been taken as seriously as it has
…for a while now candidates have volunteered that information simply to dispell any suggestion of potential impropriety…& obviously since it’s very much not potential but historically documented in his case this one claimed he “couldn’t” while each of the reasons he tried to give were pulled apart like wet paper on account of being your actual tissue of lies
…but there is a facility as part of the oversight set up that gives Congress a right to examine the finances of the executive branch & the fact that he has sunk so much into stonewalling that avenue of investigation surely says worse things about him than the returns should be able to (or when the IRS said that the fact his books look so cooked that they audit them basically every year so they can use them as a teaching aid in a seminar on how to spot it when someone is obviously taking the piss with the taxman – but in no way was that an obstacle to his releasing the information publically) or he would have let them out by now
…I don’t have a full list in front of me of the various ways that people have tried to get that material into the public record or the litany of bullshit moves he’s pulled out of his ass to block it at every turn but it certainly includes denying that an independent firm of accountants have the right to comply with the properly issued directives of an actual court with a legitimate reason to make the request & exactly no legitimate reasons have been offered as to why they shouldn’t…unless you ask a select subset of judges & the ever-reliable-but-always-full-of-shit-Bill Barr
…so it boils down to it being that he just can’t bear for people to know that stuff
…maybe because while he routinely inflates his net worth while bragging about this or that imagined feat of financial & business acumen he lowballs everything to the taxman & spends a great deal getting people to make him look poorer than the proverbial church mouse on paper so as to avoid the actually-having-to-pay-tax part
…or maybe because he clearly has either money coming in from embarassing sources or it’s obvious that the holes where all the money he’s obviously spending should be imply either that his wealth is a sham or that the money is so sketchy if he committed to paper how he came by it he’d be comitted to a penitentiary forthwith
…maybe some fun combination of both…or something somehow worse than either…the only thing we know for sure is that it currently looks fucking awful but he still thinks them seeing the light of day would be worse
…& after the reporting about exactly how much of the family’s fortune came about by ripping off the state in ways that are explicitly unlawful…not to mention fucking over just about anyone they ever had any kind of financial relationship with…particularly their tenants & people who thought they might pay for the work they asked to be done in keeping with that out-dated business practice of keeping one’s word…he’s most likely right about that…but it must be something pretty fucking shameful
…so I guess the nearest I can get to answering your “where the House can go” question is that you’d think the answer would most likely be to Mazars (who asked for what some call a “friendly” subpoena so they could go ahead & comply without having to listen to the asshole kick off about how they shouldn’t volunteer the information) but somehow it seems like the case currently held to have a better shot is the Vance one…& even then it seems unlikely that we get to see anything until after the fat lady sings as far as this term of office is concerned
…which sounds pretty dire…but it’s always worth remembering that whilst very successful in terms of slow-walking the thing most of the defences he’s offered are pretty tenuous & very nearly none of them work for a private citizen…so those cases all sitting on someone’s docket until he’s ex-president could really crucify him if we’re lucky…as should (all other things being equal & assuming justice does in fact exist) the insane degree of financial impropriety & flagrant self-enrichment he’s indulged in while in office
…it’s all very well trying to work your way up from the misapprehension that when Nixon said “when the president does it, it isn’t illegal” he didn’t go on to admit that nobody agreed with him about that…but if you were pulling shit nobody should be getting away with before, during & presumably after a stint in the top job even that veneer peels off to expose the underlying rot…one would think?
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
The Sate of New York will be ready to nail him once he’s out of office and he knows it. If we’ve learned anything from this presidency is that the Constitution or other federal laws have no prescriptions for a president who abuses his power. Impeachment is a joke. There will need to be a legal equivalent to a sword of Damocles over the presidency from here on out.
The president isn’t above the law. The illusion that the president is some ultimate gentleman is over and done with.
Right now, though, Congress doesn’t have the room to act or investigate him further. If he gets a second term? I’m sure that will be an occupation of theirs.
…I could get behind the people talking about making “inherent contempt” a thing again
…but it seems that with things locked up by an openly partisan Senate who were happy to public put their fingers in their ears & proclaim to anyone that would listen that they didn’t need to hear any testimony because they just knew there was nothing to the many, many, many accusations nestled amongst the mountains of evidence that their boy is a wrong ‘un
…& an ability to simply shrug off & ignore subpoenas & directives handed down by Congress
…there’s an extent to which in de facto terms they can & will continue to pull the most outrageous shit while claiming that it’s simply the way the game is played
…that shit needs to stop whoever winds up in the White House…but fixing it sure seems like it would go a lot better if (don’t jinx it) the Democrats could pull off the trifecta & lock these clowns out the way they’ve tried to lock out Justice itself by taking the Presidency & both Houses of Congress
…the judiciary’s still going to be in a world of hurt but absent an AG who seems to think his only job in the world is covering the mountainous piles of shit his boss has been leaving everywhere like some kind of incontinent GOP elephant mascot…they could maybe install some real teeth in these procedures?
Ah shucky ducky, look who got Covid at a Trump rally!